Coming Attractions

The First Real Trailer for Tarantino’s The Hateful Eight Is Finally Here

A mysterious teaser trailer for Quentin Tarantino’s embattled new movie, The Hateful Eight,didsurface online a while back, but it was missing one very important element . . . actual footage from the film. That’s not the case with this new trailer, which is packed to the gills with the behatted heroes and villains of Tarantino’s latest locked-room action drama. Everyone in the star-studded cast—Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Samuel L. Jackson, Walton Goggins, Demián Bichir, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, and Bruce Dern—gets their moment, but it’s Jackson, by now a total pro when it comes to Tarantino dialogue, who steals the show.

The trailer is scored with a bit of anachronistic rock ’n’ roll, but don’t get used to that thumping beat. Tarantino announced at Comic-Con that, unlike most of his films, The Hateful Eight will have an original score written by master composer Ennio Morricone. After a lot of drama—most of it offscreen—The Hateful Eight will premiere on Christmas as part of a lavish “roadshow” rollout courtesy of Tarantino. (More info on that spectacular spectacle here.) In the meantime, you can start picking out your most quotable moment.

From Sketch to Still: The Spaghetti-Western Wit of Sharen Davis’s Django Unchained Costumes

Django Unchained costume designer Sharen Davis says Jamie Foxx loved wearing this outlandish, Little Lord Fauntleroy look. “It seemed as though it would be the most challenging costume to design, but it ended up being the easiest,” she says.

Photo: Courtesy of The Weinstein Company.

The description of the costume in the script prompted Davis to think of Thomas Gainsborough’s 1770 oil painting, Blue Boy. She included the image in a book of research she prepared for director Quentin Tarantino, and it inspired the final design.

Photo: From Wikipedia.

For action sequences, Davis adjusted the waist and rise of Django’s tailored suit. In the script, the suit is described as powder blue, but the designer opted for a deeper shade in a rich fabric. “I didn’t want the fabric to bounce. I didn’t want light to shine off it,” says Davis, “What I didn’t realize is how much it would absorb the light. The [directory of photography] said, ‘It looks great.’ And I thought, ‘Uh-oh. It’s going to be really bright.’”

Photo: Courtesy of The Weinstein Company.

Although they looked great on paper, the heat sometimes presented a challenge for the real costumes. “We were filming in the heat of New Orleans. One day, Quentin looked at me and said, ‘Is the green coat melting?’ It would start getting saggy. I had to get a whole bunch of coats made to keep them perky.”

Photo: Courtesy of The Weinstein Company.

“[Schultz’s] hat was designed as a combination of a high hat and a bowler. I took two hats to the hat-maker and said, ‘I want a marriage of these two.’ [Christoph Waltz] is very slight, so I knew if I was going to give him a big coat, I was going to need a hat to balance it out,” says Davis. Weirdly, a coat once worn by Telly Savalas (a.k.a. Kojak) inspired Schultz’s other coat, a faux chinchilla fur.

Photo: Left, Courtesy of The Weinstein Company; right, from NBC/Photofest.

For the slapstick sequence in which Big Daddy leads a surprise attack on Django, Davis says, “We had to make 300 hoods. The fabric is gauze. Gauze has changed my life on set! It hangs correctly and the actor can see through it. You can’t see them, but they can see what they’re doing.”

Photo: Courtesy of The Weinstein Company.

Django Unchained costume designer Sharen Davis says Jamie Foxx loved wearing this outlandish, Little Lord Fauntleroy look. “It seemed as though it would be the most challenging costume to design, but it ended up being the easiest,” she says.

Courtesy of The Weinstein Company.

The description of the costume in the script prompted Davis to think of Thomas Gainsborough’s 1770 oil painting, Blue Boy. She included the image in a book of research she prepared for director Quentin Tarantino, and it inspired the final design.

From Wikipedia.

For action sequences, Davis adjusted the waist and rise of Django’s tailored suit. In the script, the suit is described as powder blue, but the designer opted for a deeper shade in a rich fabric. “I didn’t want the fabric to bounce. I didn’t want light to shine off it,” says Davis, “What I didn’t realize is how much it would absorb the light. The [directory of photography] said, ‘It looks great.’ And I thought, ‘Uh-oh. It’s going to be really bright.’”

Courtesy of The Weinstein Company.

Although they looked great on paper, the heat sometimes presented a challenge for the real costumes. “We were filming in the heat of New Orleans. One day, Quentin looked at me and said, ‘Is the green coat melting?’ It would start getting saggy. I had to get a whole bunch of coats made to keep them perky.”

Courtesy of The Weinstein Company.

Director Quentin Tarantino watched Bonanza with the costume designer and referred to it frequently. Davis also reviewed many of the Westerns she’d seen with her father, a fan of the genre.

Davis used Charles Bronson’s The White Buffalo (1977) as a reference for Django’s sunglasses. “Jamie has a wide face, so it’s hard to find glasses for him,” Davis says. “I never told [Quentin Tarantino] where I got them.”

Davis created Broomhilda’s strong, final look to indicate the character’s new independence. The designer admits there’s a logic gap in this wardrobe choice, however. “Where she finds these clothes, we don’t know. You see her in a bed, and then you see her on the horse.”

Courtesy of The Weinstein Company.

“You too could buy this belt!” says Davis. “Sometimes I think the costume gods are shining over me. I thought, ‘Where am I going to get a belt for her 22-inch waist? I found it at the Peruvian Connection. ”

Courtesy of The Weinstein Company.

Spaghetti Westerns often employed super-saturated colors. Davis nodded to the tradition with Broomhilda’s yellow, blue, and purple dresses. The silhouette seen here in Blood for a Silver Dollar(1965) is similar to that worn by Washington in the final scene.

From Everett Collection.

For the majority of the film, Davis says, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington) is dressed by others. Here, as a slave, she wears a simple purple dress. Later, at the Candie plantation, Davis imagined she might be dressed like a doll. By all accounts, Washington had the most trying role in the film.

Courtesy of The Weinstein Company.

Broomhilda begins the film wearing dark purple and ends it in a lighter shade. Davis illustrated Broomhilda’s costume arc from the outset.

Courtesy of The Weinstein Company.

Many of Davis’s creations never made it to the screen. For instance, Davis intended for Broomhilda to wear these dresses during Django’s visions. The garments were made, but the scenes were not filmed.

Courtesy of The Weinstein Company (2).

Whereas Foxx is a stickler for fit, Davis reports that Leonardo DiCaprio took a low-key approach. “Leonardo was easygoing. I illustrated everything; so as long as it looked like the illustration, no one was surprised,” says Davis.
Courtesy of The Weinstein Company.

I saw Calvin as a gambler, and a little bit like Rhett Butler. I combined those two ideas,” says Davis.

(Spoiler alert!) Calvin Candie’s supper suit hinted at his eventual demise. “I ordered real carnations and I ordered fake carnations. We ended up using a fake carnation, which was smart. You want to make sure the carnation is the same each time. Special effects rigged it to pump blood,” says Davis.

Courtesy of The Weinstein Company.

“That three-tier coat was so heavy! I made it out of some vintage cotton that we found, because I knew we’d be shooting in New Orleans. I think I broke his back, that coat weighed so much,” Davis says of Dr. King Schultz’s signature garment. “You could put anything on [Christoph Waltz] and he’d make it work. That guy can pull off a costume.”

Courtesy of The Weinstein Company.

“[Schultz’s] hat was designed as a combination of a high hat and a bowler. I took two hats to the hat-maker and said, ‘I want a marriage of these two.’ [Christoph Waltz] is very slight, so I knew if I was going to give him a big coat, I was going to need a hat to balance it out,” says Davis. Weirdly, a coat once worn by Telly Savalas (a.k.a. Kojak) inspired Schultz’s other coat, a faux chinchilla fur.

For the slapstick sequence in which Big Daddy leads a surprise attack on Django, Davis says, “We had to make 300 hoods. The fabric is gauze. Gauze has changed my life on set! It hangs correctly and the actor can see through it. You can’t see them, but they can see what they’re doing.”